Sally Bishop eBook

“I haven’t appreciated you sufficiently,
Sally,” she said in a toneless voice. “You’re
not the sort that gets appreciation. But, my
God! I think you’re wonderful. Do I
keep saying ‘God’ too much, d’you
think?”

CHAPTER V

That night Sally sat in her old rooms once more and
wrote a letter to Traill. The return to them
had for one moment surged back in a rushing flood
of memories; but it did not overwhelm her. She
threw herself into no quagmire of despair. Her
eyes were tearless. All her actions were such
as those of a person dazed with sleep. One hope
she had in her heart which animated her, just as the
hope of ultimate rest will give sluggish life to the
person whose eyes are heavy with fatigue.

Towards the realization of that hope, she seated herself
at her desk and wrote to Traill.

“DEAR JACK,

“Will you come and see me to-morrow afternoon
at about half-past four? I will give you some
tea. I want to speak to you. Please do not
think that I am going to begin to pester you with unwelcome
attentions. My silence over these two or three
months should convince you that I would not worry
you like that for anything.

“Hoping that I shall
see you,
“Yours sincerely,
“SALLY BISHOP.”

When she had posted it, she went to bed and slept
fitfully till morning. There was no letter waiting
her from Traill, but an envelope addressed with a
scrawled, uneven writing lay in the box. She tore
it eagerly open, her heart beating exultantly.

“DEAR SALLY,” it read,

“Mummy has gone out I am to write to you
I am to say good bi proply I am very fond of
you but I doant luv you Mummy ses you have been
very kind I wode luv you very much if you was my
mummy but mummy ses she is she is I am afrade this
is not spellt rite but I have got a very bad pen.

“Yours affagintly,
“MAURIE.”

If the tears could have come then; but she laid the
letter down on the table, and her eyes were aching
and dry. The quaintness of the spelling, the
almost complete absence of punctuation. That queer
little repetition, of words—­“she is
she is”—­none of these things moved
her, even to smile. Maurie had said good-bye properly.
That, and that he was only just fond of her, was all
that reached her understanding. Had the letter
been from a lover, dashing all her hopes into fragments,
she could not have read it more seriously. But
one prospect was left her. She never took her
eyes from that. The fact that Traill had not
written did not convey to her mind any fear that he
would not come. She knew that he would not needlessly
lead her to expect him and disappoint her at the last.

At four o’clock she had the table laid for tea.
The dainty china that she had bought with him when
abroad was brought out. The kettle was beginning
to sing on the gas stove in the grate. When everything
was ready, she tried to sit quietly in a chair, but
her eyes kept wandering to the little Sevres clock.
Again and again she rose to her feet, looking out
of her window into the street below.